1) Believe.

The widespread assumption that funding public transit is a subsidy for a service all residents and businesses don't benefit directly from is dead wrong and needs to be challenged.  The T is an asset to businesses and central to the cultural and economic vitality of the urban core and urban centers around it. 

Look what happened to Davis Square when the Red Line was extended through Davis to Alewife. Long in decline, the Square is now bustling.  The Metropolitan Area Planning Council found that a mere five years after the Northwest Extension was completed (in '84) "Davis Square appears to have passed the turning point on its way to recovery. Businesses in the Square, old and new alike, are generally thriving and public confidence is high. The Red Line clearly ... helped to stimulate this revitalization."  T traffic at Davis has since exceeded projections almost fourfold.  Businesses in the area continue to thrive. 

A truly forward-looking public transit plan would acknowledge that cities with clean and efficient public transit are vital economically and viable as centers of culture and commerce.  If the system of public transit is comprehensive, clean and modern, and service is courteous and efficient, it begins to seem like a real alternative to driving.

2) Expect Excellence.  Demand Excellence. 

I guess some of you didn't get the memo: the days when Boston was a town of self-indulgent losers are over.  This is Title Town now, baby!  Get with the program!  Boston is home to world class professional sports teams and  universities.  It's on the cutting edge of American politics.  It's a booming biomedical research hub.  People actually live in our urban centers with potentially the most alternative-transportation-friendly infrastructure in the country.

So why do we accept mediocrity (or worse)?  Why do we accept congested city streets that work for no one? Not for motorists, cyclists, or pedestrians?  Why do we accept buses that rarely show up, and never on schedule?  Rising fares and threats of rising fares coupled with abysmal service and threats of more abysmal service if the fares aren't raised (and even if they are)?  

Repeat after me: "I'm a winner, with good prospects and a lot to offer despite the superficial misdirected social values perpetuated by the MBTA that inform me otherwise."

3) Commit.

Boston mayor Tom Menino talks a good game when it comes to transit-oriented development, public transportation, and bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly streets, but too often stumbles when it comes to scattered and piecemeal implementation (haven't heard much from the Mayor about his newfound fondness for cycling since he got hit by a car a couple months ago).  

Metro Boston needs an integrated and coordinated master plan that commits unequivocally and long-term to a greener, cleaner public transit system that will get you anywhere in Metro Boston you need to be any time of the day, any day of the week.  If local, state and federal governments commit, cooperate, and coordinate it's achievable. 

4) Eat the Debt.

The state needs to eat the MBTA's debt, and come up with realistic funding sources for future development.  The system of forward-funding is obviously seriously flawed.  For a primer, check out Michael Bernstein's excellent, in-depth article in the Phoenix from the last round of fare hikes where he shows how "the state dumped some $8 billion of existing MBTA-related debt onto the authority's books, saddling it with huge annual debt-service payments," and the legislature absolved itself from offering solutions to pay down debt.

Where will the state get the money to deal with the debt and future funding, you ask?

5) Get Out The Sticks.

Start by charging more for using the roads.  From higher fees for on-street parking to tolls for portions of Storrow Drive, to a state gas tax (Massachusetts' current gas tax is comparatively moderate).  We've seen that higher fuel costs have driven more people to use public transit.  Instead of threatening to raise prices on public transit in turn, commit to keeping fares down. 

Develop a system of congestion charge zones as in London.  While congestion charge zones flopped in New York, they could still work in Boston.  Such a plan would be opposed by businesses in the congestion zone, as it was in London, but just a couple years on, businesses didn't seem to have suffered...

The Fourth Annual Review by Transport for London in 2004 indicated that business activity within the charge zone had been higher in both productivity and profitability and that the charge had a "broadly neutral impact" on the London wide economy. The Fifth Annual Review continued to show the central congestion zone outperforming the wider London economy.

6) Bring on the Carrots!

Instead of the usual funneling of funds from fees and tolls to crooked politicians, corrupt unions, and connected contractors, commit to keeping fares low, and spend revenues on expansion, equipment, service upgrades, and modernization, and to offset the cost of incentivizing small-business and transit-oriented development within the congestion charge zone.

7) Bust the Unions.  Dissolve the MBTA. 

None of this will work with the current crew at the MBTA.  The attitude toward customer service, from Upper Management on down, is poor.  A restructured, fully-funded, modern transit system has no use for this dysfunctional organization. 

Formed in 1964, the MBTA is the epitome of a complacent, self-serving bureaucracy.  They provide a service vital to Metro Boston, and do it poorly knowing that those who use it have few alternatives.  There's not adequate accountability, and very little transparency.  The MBTA as currently configured and funded is incapable of succeeding.

I don't think that anyone is averse to fair wages for fair work.  The wages, health and pension packages at the T are outstanding.  The work?  Um, not so much.

Automation should have eliminated jobs. Instead, the MBTA was forced to create fake new positions with laughable titles like "MBTA Ambassador" and build little pods to keep their new Ambassadors comfy.  Now, I have found some helpful "Ambassadors," but, frankly, signage could do the job just as well, if not better.  Recently I had to go to three stations before I could find an "ambassador" who could help me get a new Charlie Card.  The one in Davis told me she would like to help me but did not have a key to the Ambassador Pod, where the cards are kept.

8) Create a Transit Authority for the 21st Century.

The MBTA is obviously mired in debt, mired in the past, and rigged to fail.  It lurches from crisis to crisis somehow keeping its head above water, but barely.  What leverage it maintains comes from the knowledge that Metro Boston would collapse without public transit.   Don't believe me?  Try dumping a million more commuters on the street every day. 

What might a more agile, flexible, and outside-the-box organization look like?  With some of the world's foremost thinkers why can't we build a public transit authority capable of responding to new technologies and trends?

9) Invest in new forms of transport.

From zip-bikes to jet-packs, from fold-n-stack electric cars to teleportation devices, public transit of the future is bound to be outside the box.  MIT is on the cutting edge.  Metro Boston needs to take advantage. 

10) At a minimum, get a new mascot, for chrissake. 

I hear Charlie The Tuna's free.  Anything's better than that faceless freak on the current Charlie Card.

Some leadership from the State House would do wonders in taking the first vital steps toward building a system of public transit for the 21st Century in Boston.  There's no reason I can think of for accepting the current state of affairs.  Repeat after me: "I'm a winner, with good prospects and a lot to offer despite the superficial misdirected social values perpetuated by the MBTA that inform me otherwise."